Hahnemuhle Fine Art Baryta

[Ed Richards]

Anyone seen this yet? How does it compare to Harman Gloss?

[Ted Harris]

Stay tuned,

I have just started on a paper comparison project that will be published in the march-April issue of View Camera. I'm testing the Harman, Ilford, Hahnemuhle and Innova papers. I'll be doing some cross printer testing too on an HP Z3100, Canon IPF 6100 and Epson 7800.

All I can tell you so far, after a very few prints is that the Harman and Ilford papers are quite different.

[JPlomley]

Ted,

Looking forward to your article as always. If resolution is a criteria, would it not be prudent to use an xx80 series Epson printer? Apparently the drivers are improved and the dot gain minimized. Some improvement in Gamut as well. Three printers and four papers makes for quite an interesting matrix....it will be interesting to see how you distill the data.

Cheers,
Jeff

[Tyler Boley]

It has too much texture for my taste. I think these manufacturers are going to have a hard time pleasing us with these faux fiber gloss papers, none seem quite right. And we are very picky about our surfaces after decades of wonderous papers.
This surface is very similar to the 1st iteration of the somewhat naugahyde-like Innova F-type Gloss, which was further improved by the introduction of the "smooth" version.
The Harman, to me, just looks like a straight gloss.
Still, one of the nicest is the Innova semi-matte.
We're getting there, they are certainly all working hard at it. The dmaxes, ability to take ink, gloss differential and bronzing are all rapidly improving.

The silver papers we loved because they WORKED in some pleasing way, each a bit differently. These papers need to do that on their own as well, without referencing anything previous.
Instead of making a paper like the best fiber silver, how about- let's make a paper that has a nice thickness, a deep dmax with a satiny gloss, and beautiful unintrusive surface quality, and see where that takes us...
I'm still not sure what baryta has to do with that.
Tyler

[Ed Richards]

Depends on your taste and images. I really like the Harman because it does not have the texture of the Innova, and it is far less glossy than RC glossy paper. It also has great dynamic range, compared to the Innova.

[Ted Harris]

Ted,

Looking forward to your article as always. If resolution is a criteria, would it not be prudent to use an xx80 series Epson printer? Apparently the drivers are improved and the dot gain minimized. Some improvement in Gamut as well. Three printers and four papers makes for quite an interesting matrix....it will be interesting to see how you distill the data.

Cheers,
Jeff

Jeff, what will be most interesting is to see if I can get through the entire mix in the next 2.5 months, I suspect I may have to curtail some of it as that would be preferable to waiting an additional two months to publish. As for the xx80 series, the answer is yes if one becomes available, I'm doing the Z3100 and IPF 6100 in my studio and anything done on the Epson printers will be done by Gary Sampson at the New Hampshire Institute of Art.

[Ed Richards]

While I am sure Ted will do a terrific job, no paper review can do more than covey a hint of the info about the paper. All a review can do is help you decide if you want to buy a box to see for yourself. Once you get beyond paper color, surface roughness, and a subjective notion of shadow detail, there is little else to say, other than YMMV. There are few things more subjective than people's ideas of what makes a good looking print or printer paper. My advice - make it quick and dirty. One color print and black and white print on each paper. Focus on Epson printers because that is what most folks have. The Z3100 is great, but because of the gloss enhancer, it does not give results that help other printer owners much.

[Ted Harris]

Ed is right and further there is very little a printed review can do to convey to you, the reader, what the reviewer saw in each paper. Unless the differences between papers are very dramatic they won't show on the printed page. Not to mention there are way too many variable to make a test that will prove everything for a reader. I am going to be using two or three different printers and there are many more to choose from not to mention third party inks and varying RIP's, etc. I can share my experiences and subjective feelings and those of others I have view the prints. I can share the testing methods, settings used, etc. but none or at least not all of these are likely to mirror your printing circumstances and/or equipment. Nonetheless, there are already obvious differences that will make choices easier. For example, the Harman glossy is glossier and smoother than the Ilford. Which do you like better, matter of choice. Prints on both papers so far are equally appealing, just different.

Further, to respond to Dakotah, I am working on doing a blind test of these papers v. a silver print and will do so with a few people if I can work it out. However, the main purpose of the article is to compare the various baryta based inkjet papers, not to compare an inkjet paper to a silver gelatin paper.

[Ed Richards]

> I am working on doing a blind test of these papers v. a silver print

Ah, but which silver print? A classsic AA style gloss dried mat, a WeeGee ferotyped print, one of those pictoralist warm fuzz prints on textured paper.... I think too many people forget that when silver was all we had, there were lots of variations. Among those, passions were nearly as high as the digital divide - some of us thought that warm-tone mat paper was only suitable for wrapping boxes.:-)

When I compare to a silver print, I am looking at a glossy dried mat, and my major consideration is whether the surface of the paper gets in the way of the image. Second is dynamic range, which is not the same as Dmax - Innova probably has a better Dmax than Harman, but does not give as good low level shadow detail. Third is paper color - I wish Harman was really white, but it looks fine as long as I do not put any Innova next to it.

[Stephen Best]

Second is dynamic range, which is not the same as Dmax - Innova probably has a better Dmax than Harman, but does not give as good low level shadow detail.

Shadow detail (or lack of it) isn't so much a factor of the paper itself as it is of media settings, profile, rendering, working space gamma etc. You may though have to trade Dmax to achieve the separation you want.